Hermit Crabs are BAD !!

HI,
I was willing to give the crabs a chance even though many forums say they are not the best critters to have in you tank.
I bought 40 Bucks of live snails and saw a red hermit nibbling on alive snail, it was tring to escape but the crab was to strong,
SO I pulled all the hermits and sent him and about 20 others to the sump, if the are hungry let them chew on the aptasia in their bloody sump.I did see the big one chewing on some of that algae in the reforguim its only 6 bucks a hand full versus the snails who do a much better job of cleaning that hermits..
They are suposed to be benaficial in a tank systems buy i have only seen murder and canabilsim from mine, the bigger ones eat the smaller ones, till they start on the snails, And it isn't for their shells cause there's plenty they just like the taste of snail..
SO if you got them watch the little murders they may be stalking something in your tank now..
DOug

 

Do you have any extra shells for them to move into as they grow or just because they can? I know that I saw a marked decrease in snail death once I bought some extra shells on ebay to put in my tanks. Crabs will kill anything that has a shell that they want including other crabs.

Put any kind of a Conch in your tank if you want to see something funny, I had a large scarlet crab that was hell on snails so I put a Queen Conch in the tank next thing i see is this crab "running" around the tank with the conch sitting on his back! "Ride 'em cowboy" He was doing everything he could to unseat that conch but it wasn't going anywhere! Now all of my crabs give way to that Conch when ever they see it comming.

 

depends on which crab, blue hermits work well for me.

 

There are much better alternatives to hermits such as Sea Cucumbers and Conch!!!

 

ive never seen total murder chaos like hes tlking bout.ive seen like 1 kill every 6 months but not like hes talking bout.that sounds crazy.you nust really hate those things.lol

 

when cucumbers die they release a toxin that is not good at all for the livestock, so that probably wouldnt be a good idea.

 

Only crab allowed in my tank.

Agree, depends on type of hermit.

Could not live without them. Keep my sand spotless.

Good idea to have plenty of assorted shells laying about so they can easily change "homes" when needed, without removing another from its.


They do have a rough time in my tank. Shrimp goby likes to grab them and haul them back into his lair. --- does not eat them, just for company (house cleaning?)

Yellowtail wrasse likes to roll them over and push around tank. Again no sign of being eaten. Just played with. :-/


Am going down to LFS shortly for some shells and a few more today.




Good Luck!

 

i've always kept hermit crabs - but i dont over do the amount i have, i normally dont have more then 3 at a time. I also give them pleanty of shells to play with so that they dont fight over them.
Alot of people keep hermit crabs that can grow quite big and are aggresive and will eat anything they can, I always go for the dwarf hermit crabs!

Never had a problem yet (except when they hide whilst sheding there shell and it goes wrong and they die in the most awkward place ever)

 

Hey I was ticked off at the scarlet

HI,
I tried the blues and the scarlets ate them for lunch over the last several months when they ran out of blues they started on the nassiarus snails,
PS I have 50+ snail shells of various sizes littered all over my tanks they could change shells every day for a month.
The thing I ve noticed are mine only seem to want to eat food never clean rocks or sand, just food.
And if I don't feed enough they start on the snails.
I ve lost numerous nassirus snails to small hermits and the turbos to the reds.
This didn't happen over night but After about 6mos I noticed some algae here and there and where are my snails.
So I bought 2 doz turbos and as soon as they hit the bottom the hermits started on them thats what ticked me off.
SO I disked the hermits to the sump and the snails are gliding about doin their thing,
Hey to each their own, I just didn't see any future in the competition, between hermits and snail.
Now I need to order about 50 of those nassirus snails the true ones that is.
DOug

 

i've had massacres in my tanks.the hermits kill the snails then each other then all you have left is some empty shells and a bunch of legs scattered around the tank.i keep very few but they do eat some things snails don't so i do have them.